Tuesday, 23 December 2014

Come January 9th,
the Railways Bill is scheduled for its Second Reading in Parliament.
Bristol's MPs should be well-placed to support it – but will they?

The Bill, introduced
by the Greens' Caroline Lucas with formal support from a number of
Labour and Plaid Cymru MPs, has been hyped as renationalising the
railways.

It doesn't do that
though. This Bill is more modest and very much cheaper. It sets out
to bring the passenger train operating franchises, the ones currently
held by Virgin, Stagecoach, First, and a fistful of foreign owned
companies, back into public control.

Instead of buying
these companies out, it waits for the end of each contract, then
awards the new operating contract to a publicly owned company –
thus turning the trains back into a public service instead of the
cash cow they've been for the private operators.

Test bed - East Coast
Main Line

Of course, cash cows
don't always cough up, and when franchisee National Express East
Coast found that they couldn't fulfil their contract and show a
profit, they walked away (very cheaply!) from their expensively
negotiated franchise. To keep the trains running, a public company
East Coast Main Line was created to fill the breach. They filled it
very successfully from 2009 to date, increasing passenger numbers and
revenue, and cutting the net subsidy to a mere 1% (the industry
average is 32%, and a lot of that leaves the country!)

Even so, the current
government has insisted on returning the route to the private sector.

Public Opinion

Very positive. A YouGov survey
shows overall backing of three-to-one; even Tory voters were evenly
divided. It's not unreasonable to think that Bristolians' opinions
won't be much different.

Party policies.

MPs in this
parliament aren't as enthusiastic as the general public, according to
a recent Ipsos-MORI survey
– as you'd expect given the make-up of the House. But in practice,
few parties have a clear-cut policy - just Conservatives who are
ideologically against, while Greens are strongly committed in favour.

SNP have made positive
noises, but where would that leave their funding from Brian Souter of
Stagecoach? LibDem conference agreed that public bodies could enter
the franchise bidding against the private sector – though, as
Christian Wolmar points out,
the franchise bidding system is hugely expensive and wasteful.
Labour, while famously once espousing the common ownership of the
means of production, distribution and exchange, now seems frightened
of any formal endorsement of even having anyone but the private
sector run the country's train services. That's in contrast with
Labour's position in the Welsh Assembly, where
they're looking at setting up a non-profit arms length company to run
the Wales and Borders services, when the franchise enjoyed by Arriva
(Deutsche Bahn) ends in 2018. That's a proposal backed by Plaid
Cymru in the Wesh Assembly, but dismissed by the Welsh Tories as
'Marxist'!

As for UKIP, who knows? Maybe, if he still reads this blog, Mike Frost could tell us?

On January 9th,
the Railways Bill could be killed stone dead, or it could trigger a
sea change in which passenger train services can run primarily for
the benefit of the public. That depends on which MPs can find the
time to be there to vote, and how they balance the pressures from
their party whips, their constituents, and their consciences. We'll
see.

[Added Jan 9:] There was no time for
the second reading today in the House of Commons, so it's been put back
to February 27. Meanwhile, not much enlightenment from local MPs about
their voting intention. Just Kerry McCarthy, who seems to be saying NO
- she wants to keep the franchise bidding market going, but to allow a
publicly owned company to join the bidders. No word from Stephen
Williams, while Dawn Primorolo still pretends her deputy speaker's role
demands that she express no opinion on anything parliamentary!

Saturday, 6 December 2014

Until a couple of weeks ago, Stockwood Pete had never heard of Thomas
Rendle VC, whose bravery a hundred years ago was being honoured at a ceremony in St John's churchyard, Bedminster.

But
I had heard of his younger cousin Ellen who lived just two doors
further down Victoria Place. I actually met her once – and later
married her grandaughter. So reading the family name in the 'Post'
reports gave us both special reason to find out more.

While
Thomas and Ellen were Bristol-born, his father, her mother, and their
five siblings had all been born in mid-Devon, and brought to Bedminster by their
mother when she was prematurely widowed. Other Rendles had already made
the move, part of the mass escape from the market failures and
grinding rural poverty of Victorian England that forced so many to
migrate into the growing industrial cities.

Thomas's
career, through reform school at Kingswood (where he learned his
musicianship) to the army, through South Africa where he met his wife,
and on into the horror of the First World War will be well documented
elsewhere (though I'll add some links at the foot of this piece). Here
I'll stick to a couple of side-stories that have been turned up in the
course of the research, and offer an insight into Bristol around the end
of the Victorian era.

Wiliam Rendle

William Rendle would, had he survived childhood, have been Thomas's uncle. Instead
he was, literally, cut down at the age of ten.

His
widowed mother had remarried in Bedminster when William was just seven.
Her new husband was Richard Davis, blind from birth, who eked out a
living on the streets playing a harmonium – a sort of reed organ.
William was in the habit of being Richard's eyes, helping him – and the
harmonium – around the city.

In the darkness of an
early evening in January 1882, the two of them were making their way
down Captain Carey's Lane, off Old Market Street. You won't find it
now, as it's become part of the Temple Way underpass, but it shows up
very clearly on the excellent “Know Your Place” website.
Captain Carey's Lane was narrow, but it was much used by the carters
who shifted goods to and from the railway goods yard on Midland Road.

That
evening, as the harmonium was being trundled down the lane, William
leading and Richard behind, two horse-drawn carts were making their way
in the opposite direction. There should have been room enough to pass –
but the impatient driver of the second cart attempted to overtake.

It
was never clear whether he had control of his horses, or heard
William's warning shouts, or even saw the child. The cart hit the
harmonium, crushing William against the wall.

The boy
was carried into a neighbouring warehouse and from there to the
Infirmary, but he died within minutes of arriving. The distraught
driver of the cart briefly disappeared from the scene.

At
the inquest, the evidence emerged that many of the rules of cartage
were rarely observed, and that the driver had been all too aware of what
he'd done, though he claimed to know nothing about it till later.

A
verdict of accidental death was returned. Several of the jury remarked
that at present the street was very dangerous as a thoroughfare.
Just another death in Victorian Bristol.
….....................................

Education, Education, Migration

Life was indeed hard for the children of the poor. Thomas Edward Rendle VC, living in Bedminster with three younger sisters and two brothers, had lost his mother in 1898 when he was just 14.

Not long afterwards he was ordered to be detained at the Kingswood Reformatory. Over a century later, S.Glos council is, for some reason, reluctant to release the school records for inspection at the Bristol Record Office, so it's not clear why he was sent there. One thing's for sure; the motherless family was pretty chaotic and its members would have to live on their wits.

His younger sister Lottie was likewise sent to a reformatory school, in distant Exeter. Later she returned to Bristol and married an Exeter man at St Mary Redcliffe in 1908, going on to live back in Exeter and later to emigrate to Canada.

A younger sister, Elizabeth, was brought before the courts in 1899. The record shows that her offence was to be 'found wandering', and the court, in its wisdom, ordered that she be detained for four years at the Carlton House Industrial School for Girls, on St Michaels Hill.

Another sister, Maud, was sent to live with her married aunt's family in Coventry, but in 1904 was sent (along with the two younger brothers) to Canada by the Bristol Emigration Society to a very uncertain future.

All six children, then, were 'rescued' by the social reforms that were all too slowly supplanting the workhouse. The powers of those rescuers, who seemed to have little or no accountability, over the children now seem unbelievable; but they continued for a long time afterwards; even now charities like Fairbridge and Barnados are having to live with the shame of exporting children to the colonies as indentured labour, while knowingly hiding from them the fact they still had parents in Britain.

I wonder if that's what happened to the younger Rendles.

Credits:
Bristol Record Office for the news reports of William Rendle's death, and the Carlton House school registers – and help in using the archive.
Bristol Libraries for free access to Ancestry records. FindmyPast (subscription) for censuses, news searches, and online reprints
General Booth of the Salvation Army for the pictures above – they're details from the frontispiece of his 'Darkest England and the Way Out', published in 1890.
No thanks to South Glos council, who've still not even acknowledged a request for access to the Kingswood Reformatory archive. Why?

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

Let's start by looking beyond the harbour walls at the big wide world. (Feel free to skip this bit if you're already convinced of the need for hydrogen fuel)

The IPCC has just published yet another, ever more certain warning of man-made climate change bringing “severe, pervasive, and irreversible damage” to our world unless we stop emitting carbon.

But how to get by without it?
Britain's winds have managed to keep the lights on recently, with turbines even outperforming the baseload 5GW provided by the eight working reactors (of fifteen total) of the national stockpile of

nuclear power stations.

The CPRE in the southwest was dismissive. “It doesn’t matter how many wind turbines are built, if you don’t have wind you don’t have power”

Which is true, of course. Fair enough, the more turbines there are, the more likely it is that some will be producing energy, but you wouldn't want to rely totally on their output at any given time. And so far as I know, no-one pretends that you could.

That variability of supply is not just a problem wind energy. While consumer demand varies, it's hard to find any (non-carbon) fuel that can respond to that changing demand. Gas and (up to a point) coal and biomass power stations are quite demand-responsive; wind is anything but. Same goes for wave energy and the other generating sources that are equally ineffective at tracking the changing demand.

At the other end of the scale, nuclear energy provides fairly predictable outputs that bear little relationship to what consumers actually need at the time they need it.
Solar has the advantages - and disadvantages - of both these extremes, while tidal needs big-scale civil engineering to even approach demand responsiveness.

The big problem isn't finding renewable energy sources – it's finding ways to store the energy produced for where and when it's needed.
That's where hydrogen comes in.

Back in Bristol a couple of weeks ago, while yet another trainload of Hinckley Point's radioactive waste was trundling through the city towards an uncertain future in Cumbria, a bunch of councillors at City Hall were discussing our innovative, but stalled, project involving hydrogen fuel.

I think hydrogen is brilliant. As an energy store, it's just like coal, gas, and oil, available when needed. But unlike them it's emission-free, it's freely available anywhere there's water (no geopolitical energy security worries there, then). Put it in a fuel cell, and all you get out is energy and water, with a conversion efficiency way above orthodox engines, and no climate change, no radioactive waste, no killer local air pollution. And you can make it at the times when power plants of every kind aren't having to meet immediate consumer demand.

Hydrogenesis

We've had just such a hydrogen system here in Bristol over the last couple of years. Hydrogenesis, the specially designed and built harbour ferry, wasn't a totally new technology, but it did require the enthusiasm and cooperation of the council, local designers and businesses, and at least one major corporation, each putting up some of the cash. That was the difficult bit – and it happened. It worked. Apparently there's even an official report to say so (though it's defeated my efforts to find it)

But now Hydrogenesis is moored up without any role, without any known future, in the harbour. It's life support machine, the hydrogen fuelling station has been removed at the end of its hire term.

The councillors, in the shape of the 'Place' Scrutiny Commission, couldn't find much cause for optimism. Bristol might have introduced the the UK's first fuel-cell powered ferry, there might be every reason to think the initial investment had succeeded in showing it worked, but the human part of the whole project cannot get its act together.

There's serious ill-will between rival ferry companies, certain councillors, and the mayor – so much that co-operation seems impossible. And without that co-operation, the whole project, the whole investment by all the parties, becomes a failure, a waste of money, a waste of a huge opportunity to kick start decarbonisation of local transport.

What it needs is a commitment to a permanent hydrogen source; the £10k-a-month temporary unit served its purpose but clearly isn't a long term solution.

In Bristol, a harbourside production unit (why not at the Feeder Road basin,. in the TQ Enterprise Zone?) could provide not just for working craft like Hydrogenesis but for road vehicles too. Powered, perhaps, by renewable electricity from the Avonmouth wind turbines, from the tidal flows of the Avon, or the solar panels that will doubtless cover the new Arena.

There's national funding on offer too, if the bid's right. Last month £11 million was allocated toward setting up as many as 15 hydrogen refuelling stations and for public sector fuel-cell powered vehicles.

The brief report before 'Place' scrutiny did mention looking for funding – but it looked half-hearted and unconvincing. With the different parties only too ready to slag each other off (and there was some of that at the scrutiny meeting), it leaves the feeling that this terrific opportunity (the sort of thing that's essential if we're to respond to the threat of climate change) will be lost because the egos involved couldn't bring themselves to co-operate.

Saturday, 28 June 2014

It
looks like HorseWorld's bodged up attempt to sell off its visitor
centre site in Whitchurch for development may not be totally dead –
in spite of being turned down by BaNES councillors last November.

HorseWorld's
MD and the charity's trustees used the whole costly fiasco as an
excuse to close the popular visitor centre in February. It now lies
idle, the income it generated is lost, and the charity admits to
being in all sorts of financial difficulty.

The
perpetrators may yet be rescued from the hole they dug themselves
into. On 10th July BaNES will likely adopt a new 'Core
Strategy' that takes the Visitor Centre land out of Green Belt and
turns it into a development plot, providing up to 200 houses. See p.12 of this for a location map. The land was offered, under pressure to up the
housebuilding land allocations, as a sacrifice to Mr Pickles, and has
been gratefully accepted by his Inspector.

What
next? It looks like going through.... so expect HorseWorld to make
the most of the instant leap in land value by selling the land to one of the big
developers. Perhaps to someone like Barratts, who are already turning the other side of the narrow rat-run Sleep Lane into an extension of clone village Britain

What
HorseWorld would do with the windfall is anybody's guess. Would
they revisit their expensively prepared scheme for a new Visitor
Centre / Arena, with its dodgy business plan and its reliance on
added road traffic? Would they give their MD a performance-linked
pay rise? Would they go back to basics and do what the charity is
supposed to do?

Only
one thing's for sure. 200 new houses here will not provide
affordable homes for those who really need them.

Friday, 20 June 2014

For
most of us, this was the first sighting of The Man from Stoke Bishop in
Hengrove. At centre stage, too, as it turned out to be his turn to
chair the Neighbourhood Partnership meeting on Wednesday.

It
didn't start well. After inviting the other councillors to
introduce themselves to those residents who'd bothered to turn up in
the lecture hall of the Oasis Academy, Mike Frost took his own
turn.... “I'm Councillor Mike Frost, the newly elected UKIP
councillor for Hengrove....” To add a bit of emphasis, he then
asked those present to raise their hands if they'd voted for him –
and looked a bit crestfallen at the minimalist response. Evidently UKIP
voters are rare among those who actually take part in local
democracy.

It
could only get better after that embarrassing intro, and it did,
mostly because Cllr Frost generally deferred to the more experienced
officers who really run the show in these parts.

There
were a couple more fireworks in the box, though.

The
threat of a new bus stop

Not
just any old bus stop. This one, proposed for Fortfield Road, will
not merely inconvenience those living nearby. Peeping toms (well,
you know what bus passengers are like) will threaten privacy, walls
will collapse under their weight, vandalism and rowdyism will be
rife, road accidents will rocket, and civilisation as we know it will
come to an abrupt end. ( Somehow Stockwood Pete hadn't realised
this when he blogged about it
over a year ago.)

Most
of the residents present had come simply to alert us to this threat,
so that we could act now to make sure it doesn't happen. And the
newly elected UKIP councillor for Hengrove made no secret whose side
he was on. He brought the topic straight to the top of the agenda
from its lowly spot in 'Any Other Business'

The
objectors were quickly reassured that the whole issue will be
revisited, this time with extensive consultation through a couple of
widely advertised drop-in sessions. That wasn't enough for the
objectors, though. After they'd offered some pretty broad ranging
contributions from the floor, the newly elected UKIP councillor for
Hengrove closed the discussion and moved to the next agenda item.
Cue a mass exodus by most of the objectors, loudly complaining they'd
not been listened to. The newly elected UKIP councillor for
Hengrove looked perplexed. You could tell he's not been around for
long.

The
threat of a public forum

It
was Stockwood Pete who lit the blue touch paper on the second
firework. And did he really, as Stockwood Cllr Jay Jethwa claimed,
twist her words? Or was he untwisting them when he said that at the
last NP she'd rejected suggestions (broadly supported by the
Hengrove councillors and most others present) to open up a new
dialogue between councillors and residents. Whichever was true,
neither was mentioned in the draft Minutes, so they could not be a
true record.

Stockwood
has long stood out as a ward where the councillors take pains avoid
any kind of public forum where they can be held to account. And
this new threat to their cosy position was a suggestion, put to the
last NP meeting, that “we have a spot in the ward forum
meetings...... in which councillors can report back on their
activities and deal with any related questions from the floor?”

Whatever
the truth of how she responded at the last meeting, this time Cllr
Jethwa was unequivocal. She has NOT turned down the suggestion, and
she told us so.

So
maybe.... just maybe.... our next ward forum might see our
Stockwood councillors tell us for the first time what they get up to
at City Hall. They might even let us ask them about it. Watch this
space.

Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Instead
of standing in the council election for Stockwood (of which more
below) I'm the Green Party candidate in Brislington East this time
round. It looks like being a colourful election, because there's
another of those bizarre UKIP 'misunderstandings'.

One
Phil Collins has been busy putting his 'independent' leaflet out,
complete with the union flag, explaining that he's a UKIP member and
intends to form a UKIP branch in the ward. But he's not just up
against the usual electoral suspects, including me and the sitting
councillor Mike Wollacott. There's also an 'official' UKIP
candidate, John Langley, competing with him for whatever
anti-European, anti immigrant votes the ward can muster.

The
clash might be partly explained by this news item
from last year. Collins used to be UKIP's branch chairman, but like
so many of their spokesmen he was embarrassingly candid with his
anti-immigrant opinions, so they dropped him. Or did they? A
footnote to the Post story, added in an unusually sober style by
regular 'Post' commenter/ranter UKIPBristol, said the ban had been
withdrawn by the local UKIP branch.

You
have to wonder whether they've managed to sort it out over the last
year. Looks like they've not.

In
Stockwood, May's ballot paper is looking remarkably different, with
new faces – including Issica Baron for the Greens – filling the
list. Except, that is, for long-time Tory councillor David Morris,
who – much to many people's suprise – has decided to run for
another term in spite of poor health. If David should be
re-elected, we'll continue, as we have done for ten years and more,
to have a couple of councillors who (presumably) quietly get on with
whatever ward casework is required, but otherwise don't keep us
informed, refuse to expose themselves to public debate, and who
unfailingly vote with the Tory group on the council. You get what
you vote for. Or what you fail to vote against

One
reason I've abandoned another stab at the Stockwood seat is that
history shows I may well fail yet again. In itself that would be
bearable - but by standing down I won't have to worry that the
elected local councillors won't in future find cause to hamper and
delay my every attempt to get improvements in the ward, in case I
should turn it to electoral advantage. Such is the tribalism of
party politics.

I
hope that if elected in Bris E , I wouldn't fall into the same trap.
But it's a big factor in taking my name off the Stockwood ballot
paper. And I'm confident I could represent Brislington East every
bit as well as Stockwood.

Sunday, 20 April 2014

Way
back, when the internet was young, the 34 countries of the OECD
(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) was
secretively planning a bid to shift the balance of power away from
states (which, at least in theory, act in the interests of their
people) toward corporations (acting solely in the interests of their
owners) . It was called the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI).
Nominally in the cause of promoting economic growth, it set out to
'protect' foreign direct investment from interference from elected
governments.

The
internet killed the MAI. A copy of the draft text was leaked and
people realised what it could mean. Although the mainstream media
largely ignored it, the word spread around the world (I remember
setting up pages on the North-East Green Party website describing
what local impacts it could have). Eventually the resistance grew so
strong that the French government listened to what the people were
saying. France withdrew from the OECD negotiations, and no longer
having a consensus there the whole project was dropped.

Most
of the mainstream commentary on the TTIP has been on breaking down
tariff barriers to open up markets and encourage economic growth.
It's fairly uncritical, disregarding even the loss of discretion for
individual states to regulate on, for instance, safety, gm foods and
organisms, financial services regulation, or environmental
improvements. Such things are dismissed in the treaty as
impediments to the
'supreme,
inalienable fundamental freedom' to pursue economic competition.
Outside the specialist press and the internet, there's been very
little discussion about the provisions that encourage FDI (foreign
direct investment) by giving investors more confidence in being able
to produce what they like where they like and how they like without any risk that the
public authorities might get in the way.

Thus,
for instance, EDF could make a legal claim against the British
government if its profits from Hinkley B were threatened by new
safety or environmental regulation. Most of the train operating
companies, major bus companies, and airlines could do the same thing.
Tobacco companies could challenge legislation requiring plain
packaging on cigarettes (in fact Philip Morris are already doing
exactly that in a bizarre legal challenge designed to bypass
Australian national law using the 1993 Hong Kong/Australia Investment
Treaty)

Crucially,
such cases would be not be decided in a domestic court under British
law, or even a European Court under European law; they would be heard
by an international court set up solely for this purpose, passing
judgment solely on the basis of compliance (or not) with the terms of
the TTIP. The public good has damn all to do with it.

I
really don't know (though I could make an informed guess) how Tory,
Labour, or LibDem MEPs would vote.

I do know* how the Greens would
vote.

And I should know how UKIP ought to vote (if they turn up),
given the importance they attach to national sovereignty. But I
suspect they'd not object to this handover of power from elected governments, whether local, national, or European, to international corporatism.

* best summed up in this report from the two UK Green MEPs we already have

Wednesday, 16 April 2014

Yes,
there's are elections coming up. Three of them. I'm a candidate in one.

But this time it's not in hope of representing Stockwood on the council, let
alone becoming a Euro-MP. This one's for the ultimate in
localisation, the Hengrove Stockwood and Whitchurch Neighbourhood
Partnership.

Up
to four residents can be elected, with voting open to all who live in
the ward. Last chance to vote will be on the afternoon of Thursday
29th May at the Library (2.30 till 4), but the ballot box
appears before that at the Ward Forum (Christ the Servant church, 7
till 8 on Thursday 8th May). That one's a bit special,
because we'll also see whether our two city councillors will, for the
first time ever, take up the challenge to 'report back' to residents
on their activities at City Hall

There's
more information (and probably nomination papers) at the Library, or
online here

Meanwhile,
here's my candidate's Statement. The electoral suicide note is at
the end!

As a
Stockwood resident of ten years standing, I joined the Neighbourhood
Partnership when it was created, initially representing Friends of
Stockwood Open Spaces, later as a 'resident' member. In both roles
I think I have influenced the Partnership for the better, though I
believe there's still plenty of room for improvement. Slowly (too
slowly), the NP is moving toward being more democratic, more
representative, and more influential, but it needs members who are
ready to challenge the status quo as I have done in the past.

I'm
proud to say that I've taken a significant part in most NP backed
initiatives, not least establishing priorities on new open space
amenities, (including suggesting the seats on the Showering Road path
and the new bridge across the Saltwell Valley brook), taking part in
community litter-picks, making the Stockwood Local Food Festival
happen, and bringing the outdoor table tennis table to the shopping
square. I've had a part, too, in proposing and improving public
transport services. If re-elected, I aim to continue on the same
lines. One priority is getting a community notice board at the
shops.

I
bring a generally 'green' approach to the Partnership. So (boy
racers please note) if the Partnership is asked to take a view on the
ward's speed limits being brought down to 20mph, I shall argue that
greater safety and lower noise pollution outweigh any journey time
losses.

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

The
roll-out of 20mph zones continues apace. And why not? In Stockwood,
we're part of the 'Outer South' area where it's planned to go 20mph
within twelve months. With the exception of chosen suburban
arteries, of course. For Stockwood, that means Stockwood Lane,
Sturminster Road/Craydon Road, and most of West Town Lane. The map's here

The
Roadshow promoting all this will reach Stockwood Library on 12th
April, but we won't get the chance to hear from, and comment to,
council officers until they come along to our Ward Forum on 8th
May – just six days after this 'informal consultation' closes!

Me,
I'd go for a blanket 20mph for the ward. Here's why.

I
fully accept the case for 20mph speed limits in residential streets.
No argument there. Criminally irresponsible not do it, really.

As for
the three Stockwood exceptions, what they have in common is that
they're all rat runs.

Stockwood
Lane has long been used as a de facto outer ring road by those
heading between Wells Road and the Bath Road P&R, or on to the
Ring Road at Hicks Gate. This traffic will increase in future as
commuter parking becomes more difficult in the inner areas .
Stockwood Lane wasn't built for this, and has become a barrier to
pedestrians from the east side wanting reach the
buses/schools/shops/health centre on the west side, though there's no
single crossing point . All the more reason, then to limit the
speeds to 20mph

Sturminster
Road/Craydon seems like a simple uncluttered thoroughfare. But it
too acts as a rat run – witness the number of heavy lorries using
it. Like Stockwood Lane, it's hard to cross because it carries a
lot of traffic, and at some points – like the bend where
Sturminster Road morphs into Craydon Road – sight lines are poor
and traffic is fast. Yet children from the west side of the road
must cross to get to school; pensioners must cross to reach bus
stops.

West
Town Lane is the longest established east-west route between Bath
Road and Wells Road, and although Callington Road was built to take
the traffic off it, plenty still uses West Town Lane as a through
route. That is likely to increase significantly once the South
Bristol link turns Callington Road into a de facto South Bristol Ring
Road, putting more pressure on West Town Lane as an alternative rat
run. The 20mph plans recognise this in part by retaining the
present (though advisory) restriction outside West Town Lane School –
but that's hardly enough even now to discourage the through traffic.
Better to 20mph the full Bath Road – Wells Road link.

If all
three of the above 'spine' roads are embraced by the 20mph
restriction, Stockwood becomes 20mph throughout. That not only makes
it safer all round, it discourages through traffic and it removes the
confusion caused to drivers who must otherwise constantly adjust to
different speed limits.

Friday, 28 February 2014

Charlie
Bolton's current petition (please sign it!)calling
for direct bus links through Bedminster to Temple Meads, prompts a
review of where we've got to on the need for a multimodal transport
hub at the city's main station instead of the tinpot links that we have now.

On
Tuesday, Bristol's Cabinet is poised to give the nod
to spending £21 million on improving transport access to, and
within, the Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone around the station.
Well, Tuesday's Mardi Gras, isn't it? Spend it now, and pay back
later..... from the expected business rates raised in the Zone.
Same formula as the Arena.

This
transport spend includes:

straightening
out Temple Gate/Temple Circus. At £11 million, this takes up the
bulk of the cash. As it will leave a smaller road footprint, some
development land should be released too.

A
bit more (£6 million) goes toward access to the Arena site, 'to make
the site more attractive to potential development', presumably the
offices/apartments that are required to offset some of the Arena
costs.

The
remaining £4m chunk goes to 'improved cycling and walking
infrastructure on key routes in and through the TQEZ, sustainably
linking residents with job opportunities'. This appears to include
some unexpected but welcome projects like (at last) a cycle route
along the Callington Road Link and, odder still, the Conham Riverside
bike route.

But
it doesn't include a multi-modal transport hub

A
Temple Meads public transport hub has surfaced occasionally in the
politicians' rhetoric for years. Only the Greens have made it a priority. But now that the
high spending, low benefit prestige projects - especially the Arena
and the Metrobus - have been pushed through, can't we look at
something that really would bring about a step-change in the quality
of the city's public transport network?Despite
all the half-promises, NEVER has the Bristol administration come up
with a clear proposal, or even an outline brief, for what an
interchange should provide.

So
let me float one....

The
Objective:

Overall,
to make travel quicker and easier for all.

In
particular, to provide a public transport system that is good enough
to tempt significant numbers to choose not to use cars – thus
freeing up road space for all travellers

The
problem:

Every
journey by public transport involves waiting time – and many trips
involve transfer time from one mode or route to another. By and
large, these things are done under sufferance. They're not a good
use of time, and bus stops or station platforms are none too
welcoming. There's the weather; often the darkness and insecurity;
the doubt about when or whether a bus will turn up; and for many
ongoing trips, a walk between the relevant stops and the doubt about
which is the best one to use.

Of
course these discomforts aren't the only downside of using public
transport, but together they're a very big one – and until they're
alleviated public transport is going to be second choice to the car
for most of those travellers who have the choice.

The Answer:That's
where an interchange comes in, because it tackles all these problems
head on. It cuts journey times by much more, and for many more travellers, than any Metrobus route could hope for. And it does it efficiently, comfortably, and safely.

Here
I float my own idea about what the minimum on offer at the TM Hub
should be:

Public
transport (bus, train, or ferry) to all
parts of Bristol, daytime and evening.

A
single covered, enclosed, waiting area with seating, within one
minute of bus pick-up, three minutes of trains or ferry

Real
time information displays for all servicesTicket
sales (all modes) before boarding

Public
transport to outlying areas, not just those served by rail, eg
Clevedon, Thornbury, Wells/Radstock.

Retail,
refreshments and other amenity on-site

bike
hire and storage

Left
luggage

Wi-fi

a
dedicated and very frequent service to the Centre and Broadmead

Would
it work?

Who
knows... the psychological bond between driver and car is very hard
to break. But an interchange of this quality would certainly do the
job to an order many times better than any other single project.

Is
it do-able?

The
space is there. Plot 6, alongside the Old Station, is ideally
placed (though rail electrification looks like it will need two
further tracks, either adjoining or through it). There's also the
cleared space around Bristol and Exeter House, and (less viable)
around the derelict shell of the Royal Mail building. All of these,
individually or in combination, have the potential to provide a real
hub. All are that rare thing in a city centre, undeveloped sites.
And all are part of the Enterprise Zone, enabling a joined-up
development plan that can – if the will is there - provide
joined-up transport.

Who's
involved?

Principally,
the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership (self-appointed
business reps and local authority nominees, including our own dear
Mayor), along with Network Rail. The HCA own part of the land, too.
Note that redevelopment of the station itself will be a Network Rail
task; it will be major, involving new public access beneath the
station, and a new concourse. Although all these bodies have public
responsibilities, the public themselves are not a party to the plans.

Will
they do it?

The
broad intention is enshrined in the official planning frameworks.The Central Area Plan
(p40) promises:

The
development of sites adjacent to Temple Meads Station will be
expected to deliver improved public transport interchange facilities
and new and enhanced walking / cycle routes as part of the
development of Bristol Temple Quarter.

7.14
The precise location and type of interchange facilities that will
be sought will be explored in more detail in the Spatial Framework
being prepared for Bristol Temple Quarter. It is likely however
that the development of the sites adjoining the station to the
north will be required to accommodate this enhanced interchange
function. Facilities will need to be fully accessible. “The Spatial Framework
that excerpt refers to is (as customary in such documents) quite
flowery in its description (p35):

A
21st
Century transport interchange at the heart of a regenerated mixed use
quarter. A destination, where people can meet their travelling
needs, move easily and conveniently between transport modes and
connect with the city centre and surrounding neighbourhoods.

“......
given the large numbers of people commuting in future to Temple
Quarter, a step change in the capacity of bus provision to the area
will be required. This will require new services, with high
frequencies and high levels of capacity, to address the access
requirements of the area. Failure to deliver major improvements to
bus access will substantially constrain the ability to unlock the
development potential of the Enterprise Zone. “

Monday, 24 February 2014

Another day, another
bog standard unimaginative bid to pack in a few semis on a brownfield
site.

This one's where the
Man in Space pub now stands, closed and forlorn,
in Stockwood, near a parade of run-down shops. This is no depressed
area, though... like most of the Stockwood 'plateau', the immediate
area is filled with decent, privately owned semis. In fact the
developer is at pains to assure us that this “proposal
is not for high density apartments. It is for 14 family sized homes
with parking and garden.“ Four pairs of semis, plus two 'triple'
units, according to the indicative plans. Much like the rest of the
neighbourhood, then, except that on this one garages won't come as
part of the package; it looks like the front 'gardens' will be paved
over instead. There's a playpark over the road, and the bus stops
for a frequent service to town (3 or 4 miles) are under two hundred
metres away. The pub will be gone, though!

All in all an
unremarkable development. If it goes ahead, Stockwood will be more
Stockwood still. The development won't provide local employment, it
won't reduce the need to travel, it won't provide any new amenity.
It could - if the planning conditions are right - include some
solar panels and even some better land drainage than the present use
provides, but it's unlikely to give more than a nod to such
progressive ideas.

But it would be
utterly amazing if it included such innovative (though proven)
standards as
Passivhaus , though
many of us believe this must be the norm if we're to take climate
change seriously. And it won't touch the demand for affordable
housing in a market that virtually excludes low earners. Nor will
begin to recognise that more cars are bad news... we might expect a
good 20 to 30 extra just from this 'infill' development, even though
shops, library, health centre, school, and public transport are all
an easy flat walk away. The notion of a 'car-free', or even low
car-dependency development, won't come into the planning process.

Why not? We know
about climate change. We know about homelessness and
unaffordability. We know traffic on our roads is expected to
increase 30% by 2030 if we go on as we are.

It's mad to just
carry on as before. Small sites like the Man in Space are the big
opportunity, the low hanging fruit, that can lead the change.
Leaving it to the speculative market delivers only the bland, the
unadventurous, and a quick and easy profit, with all the real costs
externalised.

About this Blog

This one's from the little known Bristolian outpost of Stockwood, first settled by city expats back in the fifties. Leafy, open, and close to the countryside.... until they grub up the Green Belt and open spaces to build an 'urban extension'.

Written by an adoptive Stockwoodsman, arrived from the wild north-east back in 2004, this blog sets out to look at Stockwood and Bristol issues, mostly from a green perspective